This section consists of a few ideas which have
been written up simply as ways of getting students and practitioners
on courses to think slightly differently about their practice. They
point to what Blumer (1954)
called "sensitising concepts", which have no great pretensions
to "scientific" accuracy, but may nevertheless be useful.
Most of them started life in the process of discussion with experienced
practitioners in various disciplines who happened temporarily to
be in the role of my students. They tend to tell stories - or bring
up examples, if you prefer - which test the ideas being taught.
So they should. The ideas which have eventually been elaborated
into these papers have started with the exhortation to "look
at it this way..." Over the years, I have begun to realise
that this very exercise is worthy of a little attention in its own
right, not merely because it is my stock-in-trade, but also because
other people do it all the time as well.

Ausubel, writing in the context of "reception learning"
(as opposed to rote learning or discovery learning) in schools,
maintains that, "the most important single factor influencing
learning is what the learner already knows." (Ausubel, 1968).
From this base he derives the idea of using advance
organizers or familiar ideas and experiences as ways in to the new material. Such an approach fits with the kind of ideas discussed here. I'm not entirely convinced by Ausubel's maxim in respect of adult
learners, incidentally: it's not so much what the learner already knows, as what she has already learned (which includes learning
about the process of learning). Nevertheless, simplified models
are a useful way in to subject matter.

The linked pages provide some examples which have been developed
with just these ideas in mind. Some of them are simple and even
whimsical - analogies such as likening teaching to making
mayonnaise, or writing an essay to baking
bread, for example. Such analogies are likely to direct attention
only to one aspect of the process: it is likely to be process rather than content which is emphasised, because trying to find
correspondences between individual elements such as the seasoning
in mayonnaise and an element of teaching is forced and phoney.

However, they all share certain features, which I dare to suggest
are common to all such efforts. They are:

Pragmatic

The models exist simply in order to make sense of situations
in which practitioners (in these cases in education or social work)
find themselves.

Ideally, they have a certain internal consistency and coherence:
they work in such a way as to set up avenues of exploration
and argument which can be pursued in discussion, to reveal features
of a situation which would otherwise have gone un-noticed or
not made sense.

They should be elegant, and account for complex realities
as simply as possible (but not too much more so): but

they have a limited range of convenience. I spent
most of a summer trying to fit some aspects of learning into
the Skeleton and Shell oscillation model, until I finally conceded
defeat. Shoe-horning inappropriate material into the model was
adding nothing to my understanding (although it yielded some
by-products as described in the tutorial paper on this site). Even so, ultimately I was gratified that
it did not work: the model had satisfied Popper's test of falsification,
which at least meant that it was not merely untestable waffle.

Provisional

This leads on to the next attribute: because they are pragmatic,
they only have value if they work. "Work", in this
context means that they help learners to make sense of something:
it does not mean that they are "true", in the sense of
corresponding to reality. So - if they don't work, abandon them.
I had this wonderful model of the teaching or facilitating process
as like a transistor, using a more powerful current to modify and
amplify a weaker one: unfortunately, no-one else understood it (least
of all, people who knew more about transistors than I did, who of
course could see the limitations of the analogy much more clearly
than the parallels). I got myself tied into knots, and moreover
came over as a pretentious prat who thought he knew more about electronics
than he in fact did. So, I dropped it.

Such a sensitising concept only works if it relates to what learners
are already familiar with. Do not cling to it just because it works
for you.

Political

Political? Like the notion of discourse, every model is ultimately (small "p") political. It selects
aspects of a situation to pay attention to: it suggests what are
the major determinants of the situation, as opposed to others which
are treated as trivial. It enshrines value judgements, and if elevated
to a form of discourse or rhetoric itself, it can imply a political
programme. If that sounds too strong, let's just say that no model
of a human system can ever be neutral. Even if the values or sentiments
it implicitly supports command general and consensual respect, there
is always another possible model (which may sound bizarre to us) which would draw attention to other
features and values. Hence every model is:

Programmatic

This implies that a model has a prescriptive as well as
a descriptive aspect to it: it is likely to imply "oughts"
and "shoulds" to its adopters. Only witting
and willing practice can be any good - we ought to eliminate
the other forms. The Subject-Teacher-Learner pattern is reactionary - we ought to try to be facilitators rather
than authority figures. The Skeleton
value-system is better than the Shell one. These programmatic
elements were not intended, but the dear old "good-bad"
construct imposes itself over everything, and it is sometimes necessary
to persuade students - and colleagues and editors - that it is not
that simple. It is easy to create caricature models of reality to
support a particular viewpoint. Politicians do it all the time.
But the academic value system suggests that understanding comes
first, and if a model is too irredeemably programmatic, it is probably
out of place in the adult education classroom.

Parabolic

It also strikes me that the analogies at least are parabolic.

That is, they are parables, in that they make a point by reference
to something concrete with which the learner is already familiar.
This not only conforms to Ausubel's original dictum, but is of course
precisely the method Jesus used to get over complex notions such
as the Kingdom of Heaven.

They are also parabolic in another sense: they do not hit one's
understanding in a straight line, with a full-frontal assault as
it were. Instead, they strike it a glancing blow and veer away again,
describing a curve or trajectory.

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